After a beautiful sunset, a bank of clouds lingers on the southern horizon. Due to the last scattered sunrays of the parting day, the western clouds glow in subtle pink hues, while their eastern cousins are bathed in orange light pollution from below. Unimpressed by this lowly display of colors, the Milky Way starts shining through the blue sky above and bright Jupiter is blurred by the thin clouds, shortly before it follows the sun behind the horizon.
I like to set up my gear early and polar align my tracker as soon as the stars start showing. When my tracker is ready, I normally take a few shots to check the alignment and composition. This image is made of my first test sequence of this beautiful evening in the Alpstein Mountains in Switzerland.
Lately, I processed some images from exposures that were taken before astronomical dusk. While there is much less detail in the Milky Way, the colorful clouds and better contrast in the foreground make up for this and the blue hues give a nice mood. I therefore checked in my unused RAWs if there is usable material to produce more "nightscape blues". This is one of my finds.
Prints available:
ralf-rohner.pixels.com
EXIF
Canon EOS 6D astro modified
Samyang 24mm f/1.4
iOptron SkyTracker Pro
Sky:
5 x 10s @ ISO1600, tracked
Foreground
5 x 10s & 5 x 20s @ ISO1600
